Cloistered in his Harvard office, he was busy turning out more Lost Positives: licit, iterate, fulgent, prentice, placable, delible, souciant, effable, vertently, fangled .
In his stories, fate is clearly placable, but his heroes never get the hang of it.
Poe's childhood is a crystal ball wherein the seer discovers an im- placable inferiority feeling fastened upon the sensitive orphan son of an itinerant actress and a disinherited .